by Simon Brett
“Any that sound convincing?”
The landlord shook his shaggy head. “Not unless you’re a big fan of Cold War spy fiction, no. I think the trouble is, nobody knows what the poor bloke was doing in this country, anyway.”
“Bar work, I gather.”
“Yes, Jude, that’s what he was doing, but surely that wasn’t why he was here. As I know all too well, it’s a crap job, bar work. That’s why I can’t get any decent staff. The pay’s not good enough.”
“No, but for him it was still probably more than he’d get paid in Poland,” said Carole.
“He was living in Littlehampton,” said Jude. “You know most of the pubs and bars around, led. You haven’t heard where he was working, have you?”
“No. I could ask around, though.”
“Be grateful if you did.”
“All right,” said the landlord. “But we’re rather starved of information, aren’t we? Nobody really knows anything about the bloke, what he was like, what he wanted from life. Those are the kind of things you want to know if you’re going to find out why someone was murdered.”
Carole and Jude were already far too aware of the truth in Ted’s words. After a little more desultory banter, they adjourned to one of the pub’s alcoves with their drinks.
“What about the girl?” Carole asked suddenly.
“What girl?”
“You said there’s also a girl who works regularly in the betting shop.”
“Oh yes, Nikki.”
“Well, maybe she’s seen the mysterious woman Tadeusz Jankowski spoke to. Maybe she knows who it is.”
“Possible. Nikki doesn’t come across as the most observant of people—or indeed the most intelligent—but I suppose it’s worth asking her. She can’t be as dim as she appears.”
The Local Game Pie lived up to Ted Crisp’s recommendation. And the Special Gravy was delicious. In spite of her prognostications, Carole finished every last morsel, but the food—and a second glass of wine—left her feeling very sleepy. “But I can’t sleep during the daytime,” she told Jude. Sleeping in the daytime—like watching daytime television—was a slippery slope for retired people, so far as Carole was concerned. Go too far down that route and you’ll stop bothering to get up or get dressed in the morning. Then you’ll start to smell and ‘become a burden’. Carole’s mind was full of imagined slippery slopes to cause her anxiety.
“You go straight back to bed,” said Jude, “and have a nice long sleep. You’re still washed out. Sleep’s nature’s way of making you better.”
Carole didn’t argue any more. Sleeping during the day for health reasons was quite acceptable. But such indulgence must stop the minute she was fully fit again.
Before she took to her bed, she felt sufficiently buoyed up by the Chilean Chardonnay to ring Gaby. And, to her delight, her daughter-in-law suggested coming down to Fethering that Friday. Just her and Lily. The perfect configuration, and no mention of David. Exactly what Carole would have wished for. Heartened by the conversation, she was quickly nestled under her duvet and asleep.
Jude felt restless when she returned from the pub. Although she had a presence that spread serenity, inside her mind all was not always serene. She had had a varied life in many different places. Sometimes the quietness of Fethering soothed her, but at others it rankled and she felt a surge of wanderlust. There was so much world out there, so much yet to be seen. Maybe it was time that her wings were once again spread.
Normally she would ease such moods by yoga. The familiarity of the movements, the relinquishing of her thoughts to a stronger imperative, could usually be relied on to settle her. But that afternoon she’d had two large glasses of wine and she knew her concentration would not be adequate to the demands of yoga.
So she lit a fire and then sat down to read the manuscript of a book written by one of her healer friends. It was about control, not controlling others, but taking control of one’s own life, developing one’s own potentialities. Jude, who had read and been disappointed by more than her fair share of self-help books, thought this one was rather good.
But her mind kept straying. The pale image of the dying Tadeusz Jankowski recurred like an old reproach. What had happened to him? Why did he have to die? She hoped she would soon have answers to those questions.
The phone rang. Jude answered it.
“Hello. Is this, Jude, please?” The voice was female, young, heavily accented.
“Yes, it is.”
“It was you who found the body of Tadeusz Jankowski?”
“Yes.”
“Please, I like to meet you.”
“I’m sorry, who am I talking to?”
“My name is Zofia Jankowska. I am the sister of Tadeusz.”
Eight
The girl was in her early twenties, with hazel eyes and blonded hair divided into two pigtails. She wore jeans and a blue waterproof jacket. There were silver rings on her fingers and in her pierced ears. She had a feeling of energy about her, as if all inactive time was wasted, as if she couldn’t wait to be getting on with something.
Zofia had come straight from the police, having rung Jude from the Major Crime Centre at Hollingbury near Brighton. And Jude had invited her straight over.
“They were helpful to me, the police, but not very helpful, if you understand.”
“Yes, I think I do,” said Jude. “Can I get you something to drink? Or have you eaten?”
“I have a sort of plastic breakfast on the plane.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“The flight left at 6.20 from Warsaw.”
“You must be starving. Come through to the kitchen and I’ll get you something.”
Bacon and eggs were the most obvious emergency rations and while Jude rustled them up, the two women continued their conversation. “When you say the police were helpful and unhelpful, what exactly did you mean?”
“They were helpful in the way how they were polite to me and answering my questions, but they did not give me a lot information.”
“They gave you my number, though.”
“They give me your name. I find your number in phonebook. I don’t think the police were keeping information from me. I think they just don’t have a lot information to give.”
“No, that was the impression I got.” Jude sat the girl down at her kitchen table and dished up the bacon and eggs. “What would you like to drink? Tea—or something stronger?”
“You have coffee?”
Jude had coffee. While she made it, Zofia wolfed down the food as if she hadn’t eaten for months. Whatever her reaction had been to the news of her brother’s death, it hadn’t affected her appetite.
Jude sat down and waited till the plate was empty. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I…You are very kind. You give me much.”
“I bought a rather self-indulgent ginger cake yesterday. Let’s have some of that by the fire, and you can tell me everything you know.”
“I prefer you tell me what you know. You are the one who find Tadek.”
“Tadek?”
“I’m sorry—Tadeusz. Tadek is short name for him. In family and friends, we all say Tadek.”
“Right.”
They sat down in a heavily draped sofa. Jude hadn’t put any lights on yet, though the February evening was encroaching and soon they would be needed. The flickering of the fire illuminated the clutter of Woodside Cottage’s sitting room, its shrouded furniture, its every surface crowded with memorabilia from the varied lives of its owner.
“Were you close to your brother?” asked Jude.
“When we live together as children with my mother, very close. Then he go to university, we do not see so much of each other. Still we stay close…from a distance, can you say?”
“Yes. You said your mother…are your parents not together?”
“My father he died when Tadek and I are small children. There is just my mother.”
“She must have been devastated w
hen she heard the news about your brother.”
“Yes, I suppose. We do not get on, she and I. But, in her way, she is upset. She do not understand. I do not understand. That is why I know I must come here. I stop everything, get a flight, come here.”
“How much did you have to stop? Do you have a job?”
“I do not. Not yet. Not permanent job. I was student. At university in Warsaw.”
“Studying English? You speak it very well.”
“No, not English. Not major in English, though I try to get it better, because it is important. But I studied journalism. I wanted to be reporter.”
“‘Studied’? ‘Wanted’? Why the past tense? What went wrong?”
“I did not like the course, not good. I drop out. Wait tables, work in bars till I decide what I really want to do.”
“Maybe you’ve got enough reporter’s skills to get to the bottom of what happened to your brother.”
“This I hope. This is why I come.” She pulled a small notebook out of the back pocket of her jeans. “In this I write down my notes, everything I find out. I have to know something, have to know why Tadek was killed.”
“It must be terrible for you.”
“I think it will be. Now I am too full of…unbelieving…and angriness. Now I just want to know what happened. When I have found this out, then I think there will be time for sadness.”
“I’m sure there will.”
“So I must know everything that is known. This is why I need see you. Please, tell me about how you saw Tadek…my brother.”
As simply and sympathetically as she could, Jude re-created the events of the previous Thursday afternoon. It didn’t take long. She could only say what happened. She had no explanations, nothing that might assuage Zofia’s thirst for detail. Meanwhile the girl scribbled down notes in her little blue book.
When Jude had finished her narration, there was a long silence. Then Zofia spoke slowly. “It is terrible. That you should see Tadek like that. That I did not see him. That I will not see him again. That is the thing that is hard to understand. That he is not there any more, not anywhere any more.”
“When did you last see him, Zofia?”
“Please do not call me ‘Zofia’. That is very formal. My friends have a special name for me.”
A sudden thought came to Jude. “It isn’t ‘Fifi’, is it?”
The girl looked at her in bewilderment. “No. ‘Fifi’ I think is a name for a dog.”
Jude didn’t think the time was right to elaborate the reasoning behind her question. “I just thought…‘Zofia’…it might be shortened to—”
“No, ‘Zosia’. That is the name everyone calls me. Please, you call me ‘Zosia’.”
“Very well. Zosia,” said Jude.
“Why you think I am ‘Fifi’?”
Jude explained about her brother’s dying word, hoping that now she might get some explanation for it. But Zofia was as puzzled as she was. So far as the girl knew, Tadek had not known a ‘Fifi’. He’d certainly never mentioned one. And no Polish word that he might have been trying to get out seemed to have any relevance.
“You ask me when I last see Tadek…Of course I did not know it was the last time I would see him, but it was in Warsaw in September. Just before he come to England.”
“Why did he come to England?”
“I do not know. He would not tell me.”
“What was he doing in Warsaw?”
“He finish a year ago a degree in music. He want make a career in music. He write songs, play piano, guitar. He love playing his guitar. Now he will not do that any more.” These reminders of her brother’s absence did not seem yet to cause sadness to Zofia. Her reaction was more one of bewilderment, an inability to take in the sheer scale of what had happened.
“So did Tadek have a job?”
“Small jobs. Temporary work. Like me. He wanted to buy time to write his songs.”
“Do you think he came to England because he thought there would be better opportunities in the English music scene?”
The girl shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. He was enjoying his music in Warsaw. He was in a band with some friends, it all seemed to be going well. Then suddenly he tell us all he is going to England.”
“And you’ve no idea why he might have done that?”
“No. Tadek was not very…I don’t know the word…not good at details of life, doing things that needed to be done every day.”
“You mean he wasn’t practical?”
“I think this is the word, yes. He lived in the clouds. He had wild ideas which, were not easy to make happen.”
“He was a romantic?”
“Yes. And an optimist. He think everything will come good some time. But of course he was wrong.”
“When you say he was a romantic,” asked Jude, “does that extend to his emotional life? Was he romantic about women?”
Zofia nodded vigorously. “Yes, even after growing up with me and our mother, Tadek still put women…up high…I don’t know…”
“On a pedestal?”
“That is good word. Often he want to be with women who are not right for him. Too old for him sometimes. But he still…yes, put them on a pedestal.”
“So do you think it might have been a woman who brought him to England?”
“It is possible. But he did not say anything to me about a woman. Usually he tell me who is the new one he has fallen in love with. And tell me when it has broken up—as they all did.”
“Did your brother have any friends in England? Was there someone he could have stayed with when he first arrived?”
“I do not know of many. Tadek had not been to England before. I do not know of any English friends of him. But it is possible he meet people. He travelled a lot in Europe. To music festivals and such events, with his band. But again it is unusual for him not to tell me about people he meet.”
“Did the police ask you about his friends?”
“Of course. I cannot help them much—like I cannot help you much. But they do tell me where he was living.”
“Littlehampton, I gather.”
“Yes, they give me address. I will go there. After seeing you, this must be the next place I go. Maybe I find out something.”
“Well, if you do, please let me know.”
The girl’s hazel eyes sought out Jude’s brown ones. “You also are wanting to find out how Tadek died?”
“Yes,” Jude replied simply.
After Zofia had left, Jude was tidying up in the kitchen when she heard the rattle of something coming through her letterbox. Too late for the post (even though that did seem to be getting later and later). She managed to get to the front window just in time to see the person who’d made the delivery moving on next door to High Tor.
Through the encroaching dusk, she recognized him from the previous week in the Crown and Anchor. Dressed in a Drizabone coat and tweed cap, it was Hamish Urquhart. Running errands for his father. Jude looked down at the that to see what he had delivered.
The envelope was addressed to ‘The Occupier’. From, as she might have guessed, Urquhart & Pease, the estate agents. They were always looking for new properties in the ‘much sought-after’ location of Fethering. Anyone looking to sell could not do better than engage the services of the long-established, efficient and courteous firm of Urquhart & Pease, who would be happy to offer a free valuation.
Normally Jude would have shoved such a letter straight into the bin. But that day, given her earlier restlessness, it had a pertinence for her. Maybe it was a psychic nudge, telling her she should be moving out of Fethering. The timing was interesting. And Jude was a great believer in synchronicity.
Nine
Shortly after Carole had put her flyer from Urquhart &Pease straight in the recycling bin, she had a phone call from Ted Crisp. He wasn’t good at remembering numbers, but hers had stayed stuck in his head from the time of their brief affair, so he rang her rather than Jude.
“Bee
n doing my bit on the old Licensed Victuallers grapevine,” he announced. “Found out where the dead man did his bar work.”
“Oh, really? Well done.”
“Pub on the Fedborough road out of Littlehampton. Just by the river bridge. Cat and Fiddle. Do you know it?”
“No,” said Carole unsurprisingly. The Crown and Anchor was about the only pub she did know. Carole Seddon still didn’t think of herself as a ‘pub person’.
“Run by a woman called Shona Nuttall. Known in the trade as ‘The Cat On The Fiddle’. One of those self-appointed ‘characters’, of whom there are so many in the pub business.”
“Your tone of voice suggests that she’s not your favourite person.”
“Does it?” He neither confirmed nor denied the impression.
“And what about the pub? How does she run that?”
“Not the way I would,” Ted Crisp replied eloquently.
The Cat and Fiddle’s perfect riverside position ensured continuous trade throughout the summer, but it wasn’t so busy on a cold Tuesday evening in February. Even before Carole and Jude entered, they were aware of why it wasn’t the sort of pub Ted Crisp would have liked. The inn sign was a Disneyfied version of a cute cat with bulbous eyes playing the fiddle to a group of goofy-toothed square-dancing rabbits. Notices in the vast car park bore the same motif, as did the signs on the children’s play area. Whether the Cat and Fiddle was a one-off business or not, it gave the Impression of being part of a franchise.
This was intensified by the interior, open-plan with lots of pine divisions which were reminiscent of some immaculate stable-yard, an image encouraged by the romantic country music that filled the air. Pointless rosettes were pinned to pillars; halters and unused riding tack hung from hooks. The narrow awning over the bar was thatched, and the bar staff, male and female, wore dungarees over red gingham shirts. On the wall-mounted menus another incarnation of the goggle-eyed cat pointed down to a sign reading ‘Good Ol’ Country Cookin’.
The few customers did not sit on their show-home pine stools with the ease that identifies the true pub regular. Suited businessmen at single tables worked silently through meals piled high with orange chips. An unspeaking couple in a stable-like booth looked as if they were mentally checking through the final details of their suicide pact.
